MAN GETS 5 YEARS IN LOAN-MOD SCAM

La Jolla resident also ordered to pay $1.4M for bilking homeowners

A La Jolla man has been sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution for defrauding homeowners around the country who had turned to his sham company for help modifying their loans.

Ian T. Kideys, 49, was sentenced last week in U.S. District Court in Indiana, where some of his victims were located, after pleading guilty in July to one count of wire fraud.

Prosecutors say Kideys’ K2 Capital Management Inc. had offices in La Jolla and operated under the names US Mortgage Bailout and iLoanAudit during the financial crisis.

“US Mortgage Bailout obtained some mortgage relief for its customers through fraudulent representations to lenders, but otherwise simply collected money — thousands of dollars from each customer,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. “Each customer received a money-back guarantee; few got any money back.”

The website for the company falsely suggested it was affiliated with the government and that it had “an experienced legal team” to help with loan modifications, the 27-count indictment in his case says. The site also offered 100 percent refunds in the “unlikely event that there is no favorable outcome to the loan modification request.” Prosecutors say that, too, was an empty promise.

Kideys’ company collected upfront fees totaling more than $3.4 million from people across the country, according to the indictment.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Kideys, who is also known as Ayhan, declined to comment. He would not say where he was, but he was speaking from a phone number starting with 858, the area code that includes La Jolla. He is to report to prison later this year, with court-recommended incarceration in California.

Kideys filed for bankruptcy last year, according to court records.

He “also defrauded creditors and the U.S. Trustee in his personal bankruptcy case by leading them to believe he had deposited $283,000 and concealing his receipt of $228,721.28,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office news release. Kideys was sentenced to 5 years in that matter, a sentence that will run concurrently to the time served in the other case.